Description

Grandpa Chopra was a bubbling fountain of tales and fables from all over the world. Like a bee, he had collected more than two hundred fifty stories from the cultural gardens of India, China, Afghanistan and Iran. He was also knowledgeable about the Arabian Nights, Buddhist Jataka and Hindu Panchtantra Tales, Aesop’s Fables, epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana, in addition to the Bible. Though he had been educated only up to high school, he could speak more than six languages and was fluent in English, Hindi, Pashto, Persian, Punjabi and Urdu.

I spent my childhood days and teenage years listening to his great stories and almost memorized many of them by heart.

This is the second volume of forty (40) stories similar to the first volume that appeared as eBook (2011) and as paperback edition (2012). However, it is a bit different in content because this volume contains stories that are written for teenagers and older children as well as adults.

As in the first volume, each one of these stories has a moral like that of the Aesop’s Fables. The first twenty (20) are from Grandpa Chopra and the remaining twenty (20) are from me. I am retelling the Grandpa Chopra’s stories as I recall them. Since they are coming from many different sources as collected by Grandpa, a number of them might seem familiar because they have been around for centuries and told by various writers in their own ways. I am not their author but only a re-teller and a compiler. However, the other twenty (20) stories that are drawn from my personal experience are retold with some changed names to protect the privacy of those they are about. I hope that your teenage children and you will have as much fun reading and listening to them as I had writing and retelling them. These stories are written to preserve the cultural heritage of India and the world.

All royalties received by Ashok from the sale of eBook and paper copies of the Grandpa Chopra’s Stories Volume 2 will be donated to the Ninash Foundation (www.ninash.org), a charity that builds schools for the female and minority children of India.

Professor Ashok Kumar Malhotra is Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York College at Oneonta, New York. He is the winner of a dozen prestigious awards such as Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, East West Center Distinguished Alumni Award (USA), University of Hawaii Distinguished Alumni Award (USA), Gullands NRI Excellence Award (UK), Jewel of India Gold Award (India), Spiritual Leadership Award (USA), Bharat Excellence Award (India) and others. He has published 16 books and eBooks on Indian, Chinese and Western Philosophy that include four books on Yoga and Meditation. He is the founder of the Yoga and Meditation Society as well as the Ninash Foundation (www.ninash.org), a charity that builds schools for the female and minority children of India.